Juncker gains traction as EPP candidate

Jean-Claude Juncker, the former prime minister of Luxembourg, has emerged as a favourite to be the nominee of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) for the post of European Commission president following news reports that German chancellor Angela Merkel has given him her backing.

According to the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag (2 February), Merkel has personally given her support to Juncker’s candidacy ahead of the EPP’s nominating convention in Dublin on 7 March. Merkel was previously thought to prefer Christine LaGarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and former French finance minister.

Sources within the EPP, however, expressed scepticism about whether Merkel’s backing for Juncker as the EPP’s nominee in March necessarily translates to her support for him as European Commission president. The German chancellor has very publicly poured cold water on the plan, hatched by the political groups and supported by European commissioner for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship Viviane Reding, for the European political parties to nominate candidates for Commission president ahead of the European Parliament elections on 22-25 May.

The idea, based on an interpretation of the Lisbon Treaty, is that member states should appoint the nominee of the party which receives the most votes. However Merkel has pointed out that the treaty does not oblige member states to choose the nominee of the largest party. She would therefore be under no obligation to support Juncker when member states meet to appoint a new president after the election, even if the EPP came first in the elections and Juncker was their candidate.

Merkel may prefer one of the sitting prime ministers, such as Ireland’s Enda Kenny. It would be politically difficult for Kenny to be named as the EPP nominee two months before the election, as it could endanger his current position if the EPP were to lose. It would be much easier for Kenny or LaGarde to be appointed in backroom negotiations when the member state leaders meet in June, because that nomination would go immediately before the European Parliament for confirmation – a more certain route for actually becoming Commission president.

Reding, who was a strong driving force behind the new system to select nominees before the elections, said last month that she will not seek nomination for European Commission president, instead supporting her fellow centre-right Luxembourger Juncker. But she informed Commission president José Manuel Barroso last month that she is standing in the European Parliament elections, signalling that she is probably running for the position of European Parliament president.